On the morning of May 19, 2016, Pope Francis presented a homily during morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta. The message of this homily can be summed up as this: that employing poor working people is “exploitation” that amounts to a mortal sin. In terms that can only be described as Marxist, the Pope details the working conditions of the poor1:

We think of the here and now, the same thing happens all over the world. “I want to work.” “Good, they’ll make you a contract, from September to June.” Without a pension, without health care… Then they suspend it, and in July and August they have to eat air. And in September, they laugh at you about it. Those who do that are true bloodsuckers, and they live by spilling the blood of the people who they make slaves of labour.

Pope Francis recalled how a young girl once told him about having found a job, working 11 hours a day for 650 euro a month, under the table. And they told her, “If that’s ok with you, take it; if not, get lost. There’s nothing else!” There’s a line of people waiting to take the job.

Now, it is true that sweatshops and other production facilities in the third world operated by large companies and owned by relatively rich Westerners have working conditions and wages that, compared to Western standards, are quite low. As a relatively wealthy white-collar Westerner, I would not want to work in a Bangladeshi garment factory. Yet we can easily see that the garment factory is leagues ahead of other options for a Bangladeshi worker. As discussed in economist Ben Powell’s book, Out of Poverty: Sweatshops in the Global Economy3, and summarized in an article he wrote on the subject4,

while 77 percent of Bangladeshis live on less than $2 a day – the international poverty standard – and 43 percent live on less than $1.25 a day, workers at the much-demonized Bangladeshi “sweatshops” average more than $2 a day. Granted, that’s not a lot. But it’s more than they would earn elsewhere.

He goes on to say that safety standards, while lower than in the West, are completely understandable from the position of the poor worker:

As an economic matter, employers are largely indifferent as to how their labor costs are balanced – that is, whether the compensation consists of wages, the administration of safety standards, health care benefits, or vacation time. A cost is a cost. Workers, on the other hand, do care about the mix of compensation. When workers are poor, they want most of their compensation paid in wages, because they are trying to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and their families.

To call for the rich to stop employing these poor individuals in the “third world” is not to stop “exploitation” and right some great wrong. It is to abruptly stop the progress upward in wages and working conditions that is necessary for economic growth. Bangladeshi companies cannot afford to pay high wages and have great workplace conditions to compete with Western ones without a gradual growth, which may result in a few Western companies paying exceptional wages until it becomes cheaper to return to the West, leaving a devastated native industry in its wake. (This is often the result, as well, of companies producing charitable goods such as the Tom’s Shoes “buy one and we send one to the developing world” promotion as well.) Nor can a business succeed by paying greater than the productivity of the worker, which is much lower in an area where poverty and lack of capital prevail. In the words of Ben Powell, “Consumers who truly care about the welfare of Bangladeshi workers should encourage companies to source garments from the country, rather than abandon its factories.”

It is, of course, true that from a Christian perspective, we’d encourage these rich individuals to give to charitable organizations and work to help the poor in anyway they can. But it turns out that charity and aid are not in fact the best ways to help the poor long-term. As the Poverty, Inc. documentary5 shows, charitable organizations and foreign aid does not cure poverty. Poverty can only be cured by opening up investment and developing trade and industry! As the filmmaker noted on the Tom Woods show6, the best way to help the poor is not to give money or time, but to invest in businesses in the developing world.

[T]he best way to help the poor is not to give money or time, but to invest in businesses in the developing world.

In this regard, the true “mortal sin” is for the rich person to not invest in the developing world, to not hire workers for wages that (by Western standards) are “too low” and to not employ them in workplaces that may not meet Western standards of safety. It is precisely by engaging in this activity, and the competitive increases in wages and workplace conditions resulting from it, that poverty is reduced and eliminated. This activity is why extreme global poverty (those living on less than $1.90 per day in 2011 PPP) has been reduced to a record low of 9.6% in 20157.

The Pope, of course, has good intentions. He truly wants to help the poor, as do all people of good will and Christian faith. But as I have writtenpreviously, good intentions do not necessarily translate into desirable results. Knowledge and wisdom must temper those intentions to achieve those results. The alternative is that, like the Israelites are charged in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”. As noted in Proverbs 19:2, “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” In Proverbs 19:8, we are instructed that “The one who gets wisdom loves life;the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper.” I pray that the Pope would seek greater understanding of the origins of prosperity and economic growth before continuing with this counter-productive attack on business, both for the sake of those that follow his teachings and the poor he seeks to help.

Altar & Throne

Help Support Altar & Throne

Do you like what you're seeing here? Help support us to keep the content comin'!

Bitcoin:

Paypal:

Affiliate

Many of us here at Altar & Throne have had our horizons expanded through Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom, and believe in and endorse this product. Join today to get the education you've never received before!